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schliz writes "Public scrutiny did more harm than good last week, after Australian police and the media released details of three stolen passports allegedly used in the assasination of a senior Hamas member in Dubai. As if having their identities stolen for an assassination wasn't enough, it turns out the victims' passports had not been cancelled by the government, so the details that were published by the media in fact could be used to open fraudulent bank accounts."

It seems like every government in the world has something equal to our Social Security Number being used for national identification... and no way to scrub your permanent record of what they want to record about you, or even an easy way toget your record cleaned if somebody should take your identity and uses it. Lifelock is basically selling insurance that if your ID is stolen, they'll do the legwork up to $1 Million in filing paperwork and making calls on your behalf to get things back to normal.

Israel basically doesn't care about what they've done to these people because for them their war against Hamas justifies anything... they've been doing War on Terror since day one of their existence. The least these people should be able to expect is that their government would cancel their stolen passports... but apparently that's too much to ask.

since when do we trust Dubai's security/police/judiciary to deliver results that actually show the reality? Strangely they were not capable of catching a known terrorist before he got victimized by somebody - so how efficient are they really and how much can we trust them

is there any evidence that his was done by mossad? Even if we trust Dubai police (which I personally do not but I do not have to either - not living there etc) can they with all their professionalism actuall

Israel labels 95% of all Lebonese as terrorists. From what I have read all the passports were stolen from people living in Israel, the Israeli government has their details (which were modified). Mossad are not interested in "finding out" who did it. Australia, the UK, France, Germany, and Ireland are all supporters of Israel, what benifit do they gain from pointing the finger at Israel?

With the Georgian thing you had Putin strenuosly and IMHO convincingly denying the claim (maybe not in the US media), Is

Israel labels 95% of all Lebonese as terrorists. From what I have read all the passports were stolen from people living in Israel, the Israeli government has their details (which were modified). Mossad are not interested in "finding out" who did it. Australia, the UK, France, Germany, and Ireland are all supporters of Israel, what benifit do they gain from pointing the finger at Israel?

From what I have read only 3 of the 11 were living in Israel. At least two were lving in their home countries at the time of the assasination (they were interviewed by the press at a location in their home country, which was listed in the article about the interview as their home). The biggest reason to think that this wasn't a Mossad assasination is the number of people in the assasination team. Eleven seems like a rather large group for an assasination of the sort that the details so far made public indic

Now you have the reason why those countries are so upset. Use of fake passports by governments to commit crimes places holders of valid passports from those countries whose passports have been counterfeited at risk. Were the countries whose passports were counterfeited, actually participating in those crimes and, should any person carrying that countries passports now be suspect.

Just look at the way the US treated people who held passports from suspect countries, people who were profiled based upon their

Strangely they were not capable of catching a known terrorist before he got victimized by somebodyWhy should the Dubai police arrest this man?why is this a problem if a known terrorist gets killed and it is not a problem when he can travel as he pleases (he was obviously well known in Dubai)?Again, why should the Dubai police arrest this man?

I imagine the consequences of trying use an invalid Australian passport in China would be worse than doing so in New Zealand. It should all turn out fine, they contact the Australian officials who explain the situation - but things don't always work as they should.

The problem isn't getting a new passport, that's simple. The problem is not knowing you need to and trying to use a passport that comes up on the canceled list (hopefully without any further explanation like, "used in sp

It's actually not that hard to get a new Australian passport issued, especially if you have as good a reason as these people. It's not even slightly analogous to the American SSN.The big problem here is that the relevant authorities simply didn't think to cancel and re-issue before publishing the details to the world.

What's the point of getting a new passport? We're talking about identity here. These Innocent people will have their names associated with terrorism forever unless they change their names. Getting a new passport won't change that fact.

The No Fly List does not include passport numbers or any other government issued ID number for the obvious reason that any number or ID issued by the government can be re-issued (even the SSN). For example I had my passport stolen before and it only took $100 to get it rep

I don't recall telling banks in the UK any government-issued ID numbers, but I haven't opened a bank account there recently.

Money laundering requirements in the UK generally take the form of 2 or more pieces of documentation that prove both who you are, and where you live. (Drivers licence or passport for who you are, tax notices, benefits letters, utility bills for address.) Used in conjunction with data held by Experian/Equifax (which includes electoral information as backup for where you live.)

The closest you'll get to explicitly handing over a government issued ID number to a bank is if you open an ISA (Individual Savings Ac

This is _NOT_ a problem with social security numbers (or national identification numbers). What this is about is the lack of strict regulation on their use and proper oversight.

If you can open a bank account just by having the information that is on a passport the there's a failure in procedure here, not an intrinsic security risk with national identification numbers. That is to say; any procedure that uses information found on a passport to authenticate that you are who you claim to be are relying on secur

"It seems like every government in the world has something equal to our Social Security Number being used for national identification.

In Australia the Tax File Number (TFN) is similar to the US SSN. However your TFN is used for tax purposes only, not as a catch all national ID. In no way is it connected to passports, drivers licenses, medicare card, ect. In fact it's illeagal to ask [ato.gov.au] for it except for very specific uses.

Given the state Palestinian foreign relations prior to the creation of Israel...

What do you base this on? Before the creation of Israel, there were no "Palestinian foreign relations" to note the state of. Before WWI, Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire (and not clearly defined geographically). After WWI it was part of the British mandate until 1948. It was during the British mandate that the idea of an Arab Palestine as a separate entity (as opposed to being part of some other Arab nation) first appeared.

Well, the Palestinians didn't wipe out Jewish villages, conquered neighboring countries territory, maintain a racist state, try to fabricate a Jewish past in Palestine or fully annex it while pretending to be interested in a peace treaty. And they don't have AIPAC.

The only way Israeli views are valid is considering the fact that to set things straight, a lot of people would have to be moved in/out of the Israeli territory, not to mention the (internationally illegal) settlements.

It's kinda funny that the world's most powerful superpower is little more than a sock puppet of a little east mediterranean state in what concerns it's foreign policy on the Middle East...

Don't kid yourself. Its established US policy to create and support "friendly states" near where US interests lie. This is one of the main reasons why Japan was rebuilt and heavily funded by the US in the far east. Its not even completely connected to oil resources I would say, but part of an ideological and strategic conflict. When the oil dries up or becomes irrelevant (possibly within the next couple of decades), most of the middle east is going to be a lot poorer than it is today, and hence a whole lot

The US was initially against the creation of Isreal, it's preference was to create a UN protectorate when the British were due to withdraw. Israel unilaterally decared itself a state the day the British withdrew leading to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. The US became a strong supporter during the cold war because it saw Israel as a useful pawn in pretty much the same way it saw Saddam as a useful pawn against Iran.

The whole sorry mess of the middle east is about strategic control of the Persian Gulf during (

Small harmless countries nobody cares/knows much about with diplomatic missions that are friendly to all.
Their passports are loaded with anti fraud devices and should just be easy to move around with.
A post ww2 multicultural population helps too.
Fraud with in Australia/NZ is not too hard.
A South American country might call its embassy staff and just shrug if caught - Australia/NZ would protest for longer and harder allowing deals to be done to free spies if caught.
Canada is too close to the USA via DHS

Well,.... aw heck, I got karma to burn. I'm pretty sure not too many would care about their struggle, just wake us when one of you remains and have at it. What bothers most of the world is just that they can't keep to themselves and pull us into their struggle. It's a bit like two kids fighting in the sand pit under your window. Would you care if they didn't scream louder than you can turn your TV set?

The heartless person in me has always thought that the rest of the world should just step aside and let themselves wipe each other out from the face of the Earth and let it be an important lesson to the rest of us.

OK, let's see: the Dubai police has, so far, incriminated 26 suspects which have fled the country, two of them to Iran. The only individuals actually captured by the Dubai police are 3 Palestinians. (That would make the number of operatives equal to 29). Additionally, the police actually found succinylcholine (a muscle relaxant) in Mabhouh's blood (so he wouldn't fight back when, allegedly, smothered with a pillow). Some of the passports used by the alleged operatives belong to Israeli citizens (7 of them, IIRC).

You don't see any problem with these?

First of all, 29 operatives - that's a recipe for disaster; the more people involved, the higher the likelihood for an error. Mossad has used two to four people in the past, even for much higher profile targets (we know this from the few botched missions). As for how much does adding people to the operation increase the likelihood for error, it's given by the formula 1 - (1 - q)^n, where q is the likelihood that one agent will screw up, and n is the number of participating agents.Secondly, no Israeli agent would flee to Iran - because it's a paranoidly tightly controlled police state.Thirdly, Mossad would never use identities stolen from Israeli citizens, as that would endanger the lives of said citizens (and protecting lives of Israeli citizens is one of Mossad's raison d'etre), AND it would point a giant flashing sign at Israel. Mossad doesn't need to use Israeli citizen's identities.Fourthly, Mossad does not leave traces behind them. Their targets have historically been either shot or their death defied forensics.Fifthly, the only captured people are Palestinians. This would point at the involvement of Fatah rather than Israel.

The whole operation, while successful, seems mired in sloppiness (having such a large group of people involved, all of them identified - WTF? And leaving evidence at the scene etc. etc.), which should be enough to discredit the claim that Mossad was in involved.

... Mossad has used two to four people in the past, even for much higher profile targets (we know this from the few botched missions)... which should be enough to discredit the claim that Mossad was in involved....

You've confused propaganda about Mossad activities spread by Israel and US-dwelling Israeli citizens (many of them in positions of great power in US media and entertainment industries) which was until not so long ago the "dominant" view in the absence of the Internet and ubiquitous digital cameras, with reality.

The truth is that Mossad (and most other intelligence agencies) was always this sloppy, but they operated in a very forgiving environment, where all the successes could be safely exaggerated and all the screw-ups completely swept under the carpet.

The Dubai situation is simply what happens when the terrain on which Mossad had chosen to operate differs significantly from a typical impoverished, inept, technologically in the dark-ages back-water where they usually do their dirty deeds.

And it is a sign of things to come. Mossad is being put on notice: your usual shit will not fly anymore and no amount of selective propaganda will compensate for the realities of the digital age and Orwellian police-state mass digital surveillance that is becoming the norm in the Gulf states.

I think I listed plenty of reasons, and each argument by itself is enough to discredit the claims by the Dubai police. (e.g. Forged Israeli national's passports? Please.).

All you have as a retort is a handwaving argument about secret services being all sloppy. Well, I know the CIA has been sloppy, there is proof of it (like the double-agent in Afghanistan that blew up 7 american FBI and CIA agents), and there have been unsuccessful Mossad operations, but there is no proof of sloppy Mossad executions. Your h

You are assuming independence. Given they probably all receive similar training and have similar cultural backgrounds, I would reckon Qn has a positive covariance and hence the chances of a fuckup are even worse:p

I think it probably was Mossad, but the whole situation is a little odd.

Fleeing to Iran is weird certainly, the inclusion of Palestinians is odd. I don't see the use of Israeli citizen's passports as odd though, as the passports used were of people with dual citizenship and as such probably aren't seen by Mossad as "true citizens" such that they were probably treated as fair game, the fact they had British passports etc. was a bonus.

There were other odd things though- as was said, they didn't bother to do a

Killing someone who would otherwise kill your and my kids indiscriminately if they happen to be at the wrong place & the wrong time can be cheered, yes.

I applaud a proper judicial system & process in environments where it can be applied.When dealing with modern-day high-profile civilian-targeting combatants who travel on forged papers (which the assassination victim allegedly was) I'd rather see him taken out of action, permanently if possible, using whatever means necessary.

Killing someone who would otherwise kill your and my kids indiscriminately if they happen to be at the wrong place & the wrong time can be cheered, yes.

I assume then that you are cheering for elimination of most of those active in the Israeli political scene, since most of them are Hell-bent on starving and beating the denizens of the West Bank and Gaza Ghettos into obedient submission, no?

I have news for you, Skippy: we in the rest of the world (excepting some parts of the US where they expect Second

I think you are stretching to create moral equivalence in two situations that are not equivalent. They have similar outcomes (death of civilians) and that is what you are building your case on, but you are ignoring all morality in what produces those outcomes. That's fair if you really are a strict consequentialist, but most people tend to back away from that in other situations (e.g. self-defense vs. accidental death vs. murder).

John Saffran seems to be okay. Tell me, do Hamas fighters distribute shirts with cross hairs on pregnant women and wear them with pride?

Isreal is the perfect lesson in why we must never give in to terrorists and their demands. Let them win once and we justified the means. Now they are a nuclear state with a large segment of the population believing in their "glorious" terrorist propaganda. It may be too late to do anything.

I'll bet it's a typo (how can it be an insult anyway if it wasn't?) and the problem is really that Israel is cursed with some criminals that the Jewish WWII refugees would despise that have managed to get into positions of power. Ignore all the "us versus them" bullshit and it comes down to individuals committing murder and framing others for it. No matter how highly placed the criminals are doesn't mean that the entire nation is rotten. It probably doesn't even mean that all of Mossad is rotten.There wa

Max didn't have a misconception he just thinks it is more significant than you do - it's called an opinion. Every country has a few skeletons rattling around in the closet but what really matters is what is being done now.

I thought that the details had been obscured by the government when it made the release. It appears that the ABC and Seven blurred the important numbers. Others broadcast the details without editing. I thought we had enough of these on Media Watch last year to teach them a lesson.

I thought that the details had been obscured by the government when it made the release. It appears that the ABC and Seven blurred the important numbers. Others broadcast the details without editing. I thought we had enough of these on Media Watch last year to teach them a lesson.

That's not particularly foolproof - after all if the stations have to blur out the numbers that means that the materials that were released to the stations (and thus presumably to the public at large) weren't blurred out. So, it helps reduce but in no way eliminates the further spread of the info, but the real source of the problem is whoever gave the stations the information in first place.

Their NSA skills are loved by the USA.
That part works.
Their domestic 'tap' all and sort at a federal packet level works.
A small population with a few pipes in and out.
Below that is Unix trained, MS using junk on a low budget trying to make a faith based web reality.
Passports should pass a points system, with face to face security:)

Slowly we lose sight of how a nationally recognized ID was not always required to do mundane things like opening a checking account.Australia (like many other Western nations) is slowly becoming a police state. That somebody's identity card was used to assassinate someone in the middle east is not the problem here.

I'm Australian, and don't have a passport. I've also had a number of bank accounts in my life. To open an account, you need proof of identity. There's a whole list of things that can satisfy this - driver's license, passport, birth certificate, etc. There's hardly a unified ID system.

Besides, you think fraud is bad now, try it when there's no way to uniquely identify people.

Funnily enough, you only need that ID when initially opening your business with a bank, if you continue to patronise their business you will likely need nothing more than your keycard and a bit of easily obtainable information to open accounts, loans, etc.

In fact, I organised, established and paid off a personal loan with the National Australia Bank without even owning a piece of primary ID (photographic) "just sign here and here...", that deficit in my own recognition paperwork has since been rectified of

Technically they did open two accounts but I believe what you said still stands.

Opening a bank account isn't exactly a path towards identity theft. Money laundering, perhaps, but large transfers in and out of the account will raise flags and investigations will ensue.

Besides, I hear hotels in Europe often photocopy the identity pages of passports. Does this mean that hotel clerks all over Europe could run to Australia and open up bank accounts in other people's names, and if that's true, what are they going

I got into a heated argument with my bank's "phone assistant" a while ago. You see, to ensure that I'm really me, they ask some "additional information" about my account when I phone in to make a transfer. Actually a quite convenient service when their webpage is down, as usual.

The security questions include such things as telling them some of my recent withdrawals or a certain regular payment (like phone bill or such), or my personal bank adviser (well, as personal as "the guy who created my account" can b

Hamas has its own particular ideology and I want to make it clear I don't support their methods.

But to say that their basis for attacking Israel is merely its existence is a distortion. There is legitimate beef on the part of the Palestinians against Israel for the loss of land and livelihood under the Israeli occupation. You and I can sit here and debate whether or not their actions are appropriate or understandable, but it boils down to an entire population of people who live under the rule of a foreign occupier and it is quite clear that the occupation has not had a positive impact on them.

We talk righteously about Jews who were forced into ghettos and then violently rebelled against their oppressors but then on the other hand when it involves Arabs against Jewish occupiers, its all of the sudden an immoral thing to resist that oppression.

Then why does the Hammas have Israel's entire land on its flag? Why does it continuously call for Israel's full destruction?

You have a valid point, there is a very justified side to the Palestinian struggle for independence. Only problem is that organizations like the Hammas deliberately blur the line between the bits that are justified, and the bits that are hate-mongering, impossible loony ideas (entirely displace a 7-million modern nation with access to money, all the technology it needs a big army? yeh, right) that are entirely outside any acceptable modern ethics/morals profile.

Maybe because they're pissed off? Try living under siege, seeing your land encroached by illegal settlers and your people's homes bulldozed and see if you're still reasonable towards your oppressors. I don't agree with Hamas's methods, but I can see why they do what they do.

Maybe because they're pissed off? Try living under siege, seeing your land encroached by illegal settlers and your people's homes bulldozed and see if you're still reasonable towards your oppressors. I don't agree with Hamas's methods, but I can see why they do what they do.

What other methods can they use? Conventional warfare against a US-backed Israel? They might as well stab themselves in the balls.

I think that Hamas's best bet is not violence. If they can only be seen as a passive Gandhi style resistance it might go a long way to improving their image in the US. Frankly, their armed struggle doesn't have much effect anyway. Also, they do a lot of things that are pretty bad for PR. For instance, arresting Western journalists [bbc.co.uk] does not endear you to the people who might be able to help your cause.

How about surrendering? Could they use that conventional method? You know, the one that has been used in war for thousands of years? Hey the English surrendered to the Americans, and guess what, England is still around. The French surrendered to the Germans, and they're still around. The Germans surrendered to the Allies, and they're still around. SURRENDER IS A VALID TECHNIQUE.

Look, "freedom fighter" is a catchy name that everyone including terrorists wants to co-opt, but if you're fighting for a cause tha

Personally, I don't think that's much of an argument, but there is a much better one. Really, I don't think it matters who lived there once, or when, or whatever. What matters is who's making their homes there now. I'm American, and technically, my land was once brutally stolen from one tribe or another of Native Americans. If one of them now showed up at my doorstep and demanded his land beck, I'll tell him to bugger off, and if he took violent action against me I'd be well within my right to defend my

on average, israel kills 10 palestinians for every israeli killed by palestinians, drilling down further, for every Israeli child killed, 40 Palestinian children are killed.

you can't claim the moral high ground while using military ordinance against occupied residential structures.

I have seen photos of the damage caused by each sides weapons, a qassam rocket will typically blow a hole in a wall and hurt or kill anyone nearby in that room, while an israeli airstrike will level an apartment complex.

Israelis don't level apartment complexes arbitrarily. They do so when the apartment complexes in question get used in Palestinian attacks, or on the rare occurrence of a high-profile ticking-timebomb blood-on-hands type of persona rearing his head in a known place at a known time.

The Qassam "holes in walls", on the other hand, are conducted randomly, by weapons with very primitive targeting, into the heart of civilian population centers, with no other purpose than to harm civilians.

I have seen photos of the damage caused by each sides weapons, a qassam rocket will typically blow a hole in a wall and hurt or kill anyone nearby in that room, while an israeli airstrike will level an apartment complex.

When Hamas stops launching rockets from the roof of apartment complexes, then there will be fewer apartment complexes hit.

...let us not forget that there is no actual *evidence* to indicate that this was actually an action of the Israeli gov't. There's just been a lot of hot wind coming out of Dubai, and a bunch of finger pointing going on in the world. So until there is some evidences, let's not let this spin out of control into a pro-zionist vs. anti-zionist flamewar.

Maybe Israel has been set up?

It comes down to what nations (or organisations) had the capabilities to do what was done with the various passport forgeries, actors, intelligence gathering efforts, etc. And then what nations had the motive and desire to set up Israel in this way (or to get rid of that particular Hamas operative).

Dubai probably checked their short list of suspect countries and not only did they see Israel at the top of the list, but it seemed to be the only one on the list. So whoever did it e

One thing I've been wondering about, this guy is with Hamas, if Israel wanted to kill him, why didn't they just wait until he came to Gaza? They've certainly had no problem killing other people in the Gaza strip. That plus the two guys who went into Iran make me think it might not be Israel, even if the Dubai chief of police is 100% certain.